Darkin: The Prophecy of the Key (The Darkin Saga Book 2) (2 page)

“What was that about?” Adacon asked.

“We’ll finish our conversation soon. I have to attend to something.”

“But what is it?”

“Don’t worry, I don’t think it’s anything important. Now that you’re up, try and relax. Enjoy your time here. Erol Drunne is beautiful in the winter. I suggest taking your lady friend for a walk through the Hanging Meadow. It’s an enchanting place—even to me, after all these years.” Flaer winked at Adacon, and before another question could come, he was gone.

Adacon sat alone in his room, and his eyes wandered to the falling snow that continued to pile on the outer sill. A wild howl rustled through the trees, and Adacon shivered for a moment, though he was quite warm. Had he heard them say
star
? Not likely, he decided. It was too much to think about. How could he be connected to Gaigas? As much as he felt shock, it made sense of the feelings he had noticed since first killing the guards on the plantation—feelings of being driven and controlled by a force not his own, of being inhumanly accurate and fatal when necessary for his survival. He’d thought at times it was Krem aiding him from afar, ever since witnessing the tiny Vapour prove his magical ability that night in the underground palace; and Krem had assisted him in escaping the farm, hadn’t he? But it was more than that, Flaer seemed to think, and he was quite convinced of it.

Something didn’t make sense though—if he was so powerful, why had he failed to destroy the Gazaran on the Enoan Road? It had taken Falen the Fire Wyvern to stop that feral creature. Adacon thought about Flaer’s proposed trip for him—a visit to Krem’s old master, Tempern. The idea of going on a voyage alone loomed like a dark cloud over his heart. He wanted to be comfortable now, and enjoy his freedom. Questions forced their way through his groggy mind, and he could do little to stop them: What was the state of the West Countries across the Kalm? How could Zesm have come to power over Vesleathren? How could Slowin and Flaer be so old? Where is Calan?

II: ALONE IN AAURLIND

It had been over an hour since Remtall had seen Ulpo. The warmly dressed gnome crept slowly and cautiously between pitch-black pines. It wasn’t a surprise that they’d lost each other; neither of them had ever been to the country of Aaurlind before, nor had they known how dark it became when night fell upon the Endless Forest. Remtall had come to the country believing he knew everything he would need to know, that he was fully prepared. He was happy enough to have the company of Ulpo. It was only a month before that the idea had taken hold of the old gnome, and he resolved to set sail from Erol Drunne, destination Palailia. Ulpo had been very reluctant to come along for fear of a strange and mysterious end, knowing well the legends of chained Palailian spirits whose torment was worse than death.  It wasn’t until after King Terion resolved to seal the gates of Oreine for a full year that Ulpo firmly made his decision to come.

After the Battle of Dinbell Wall, Terion had held a council to decide how his dwarven race could reconcile the dishonor brought upon them by the traitor Merol. Terion was deeply ashamed that he hadn’t recognized Merol’s treachery sooner, and that he had put everyone in so much danger. No one had known how long Merol was tied to Aulterion, and how malevolent Merol’s ambitions had grown—no one knew anything until the moment in battle when Merol channeled all his power into Aulterion, aiding the dark mage’s attempt to destroy Flaer. King Terion and his council of elders determined that the only way the Oreinen race could restore its honor would be to seal the city inside the Blue Mountains for an entire year. No dwarf would be permitted to leave, and no dwarf would be permitted to enter during the period of restitution. Terion had decreed to his kin one month prior “If any dwarf see it not fit to serve this restitution for the shame our race has brought upon the good people of this world, I bid him take leave of Oreine—I will not judge him, and once the time has come to reopen our city to the world, those who left will not be shunned by us. I refuse to condemn those who disagree with my decision, I only ask that they journey elsewhere, and let us fulfill our noble duty. Know that the gate will not be opened under any circumstance.”

Despite heavy protest from the elves, free men, and even the Grand Council of Erol Drunne itself, King Terion followed through with his plan, and sealed his people within the mountains. The Grand Council had even sent Krem on its behalf, to explain to King Terion personally that sealing the mountain would only serve to further disgrace their legacy. The Grand Council argued that in the hour of Zesm’s multiplying strength, cutting off from the world would be detrimental to the cause of ridding the world of evil once and for all. Krem’s testimony was ineffectual—some began to contest that the dwarves’ true reason for closing the city was other than what Terion declared it to be; they proclaimed that a dark secret festered in the Blue Grey Mountains.

Ulpo was distraught by his King’s decision, and believing in his heart that the true motive of Terion was concealed, he took the standing offer from Remtall. Ulpo believed that it was not the shame of Merol’s evil that had caused Terion to seal the Blue Mountains, but the shattering of the Prophecy of the Key. The prophecy, based on a parchment found deep within the Oreinen caverns thousands of years ago, stated that a Key would appear one day on the fertile earth. The key would be a terrible danger to everyone except “the departed race,” a lost people of Darkin. In the parchment, the key was described to look like a tall, shiny golem made of a metal foreign to the world—Slowin.

Ulpo had once believed in the prophecy, and it had come as a great shock to all the dwarves when the Key appeared on the Enoan Road and was captured. Slowin, the portended omen of evil, had turned out to be good, fighting valiantly in the crusade against evil. But there were those in Oreine who took a more serious belief in the scriptures and the prophecy. After the prophecy was shown to be myth by the heroics of the once feared Golem who fought bravely alongside the dwarven army, the foundation of the Oreinen belief system had been shattered—a thousand years of ritual and tradition had been centered in a false canon. That shame, Ulpo believed, defamed the Oreinen much worse than Merol had. He saw Terion’s seclusion as a chance for the King to reforge a belief system, to mend a broken cultural foundation, to somehow make amends with the centuries of belief in what had turned out to be a lie. Ulpo was hurt by the disgrace Merol had caused his people, and shocked by the dissolution of the prophecy, but not enough was his woe to go into hiding—he was in the minority of dwarves who wanted to journey out to aid the cause of the war. He would make restitution for the race not by going into idle mourning, but by striking out into the world and adventuring toward the fight against Zesm. Remtall’s frightening offer to sail south had become a ray of hope for Ulpo, a true path to redemption.

It was a well known legend that Palailia housed the greatest weapon in all of Darkin, the most powerful artifact ever derived from the constituents of Gaigas: the Rod of the Gorge. It was Remtall’s idea to seek the Rod, despite the well known tales of Palailia’s hauntings. Even Krem had warned against the trip, and expressed his doubt about the existence of the Rod. Ulpo knew that an evil necromancer was said to control the ruined gnomen mines of Palailia, but Remtall believed that the treasured Rod buried there was the answer for Zesm, and that with the power of the Rod an end might finally come for the evil in the West Countries. With the Rod, he would get revenge for his son’s murder. Though Remtall hadn’t made his offer to travel south more attractive by admitting he didn’t know the way, Ulpo thrust himself into the wily gnome’s quest anyway. It seemed that since journeying from Rislind, Remtall had reclaimed his spirit of old, and his courage for adventure. Besides the seriousness of their mission together, there was always their mutual admiration of fine smoking weeds and assorted liquors—at least that much would comfortable in their perilous journey.

*                  *                 *

“Ulpo!” cried Remtall in frustration. He had been calling out every five minutes since their separation. Earlier, he’d tripped in his hasteful search, extinguishing his torch in a muddy puddle. In vain he had attempted to rekindle it, finally declaring it ruined; he was left to trudge through the woods with only his poor eyesight.

Remtall stopped in his tracks and peered into the eerie black of the Endless Forest. He looked skyward, trying to see through the thick branches—nothing. His hope for starlight was dashed, and he set his eyes again to the wooded path in front of him. The darkness in the Endless Forest was somehow different than the nights he knew in Arkenshyr; it was somehow heavier, if air could be said to have weight, and a deeper shade of black. The presence of the darkness somehow permeated his being in a way that not only forsook his eyes, but his heart as well. Hardly noticing fear trickle into his consciousness, Remtall looked to his flask, clasped loosely on his belt. He knew the liquor he had brought was nearly gone. It had been the stoutest drop in all of Enoa, bought for a hefty sum at the southernmost port city of Cams-Den Gnarl. The purpose of such a strong drop had been to sustain Remtall farther along with less to carry—the liquor was so strong that he had assumed it would lessen his consumption. His plan had worked flawlessly after stepping onto Aaurlind from their anchor mooring, until one hour ago; now, though Remtall hadn’t realized, his rate of consumption had increased fourfold.

“Poor sighted dwarven bastard…” Remtall complained, giving up his attempt to see through the damp black atmosphere. He decided to rest a moment, as flying through the forest for an hour had done him no good in finding his missing partner, and it had been too long since he’d had a smoke. The small gnome calmly knelt down and felt the ground for a smooth patch of grass to sit on. Too exhausted to take much time feeling the earth, Remtall conceded the ground suitable for sitting and plopped down. 

“Sweet whore of Gaigas!” screamed Remtall. He rolled to his side, having sat heavily into an upturned pine cone. The dazzled gnome grasped blindly at his buttocks. Finally, the embedded needle dislodged. “Any more to throw at me, good Gaigas?” Remtall spat into the charcoal firmament.

As he rubbed his new sore, he glimpsed a flickering pair of eyes in the periphery of his vision. After much straining, he could make out vertical lines of tree trunks, crowded together, clustered around dense foliage, a monotony only occasionally broken up by a high shrub or vined overgrowth.

“Out then, spies!” Remtall coughed. He quickly decided that he could not trust his senses—even the hardened sea captain of the Gnomen Fleet knew not to trust everything he saw under the spell of
Oms Fine Granite Liquor.

“Empta Gnoma! Kiss Dill Wort!” shouted a high-pitched voice, shrill even to Remtall’s dulled senses.

“What? Speak the common tongue Feral spy! Come out and be seen,” he challenged back at the incomprehensible voice. Quickly, he drew his dagger and regained his feet, frantically scanning the lightless void between each nearby pair of pine trunks. Still nothing could be seen through the night-shaded dark, and he grew angry.

“Come out vile creatures, if it’s me you want! What have you done with Ulpo?” Remtall roared, letting his fear pass out of him, replacing it with adrenaline, and once again feeling his wits grow sharp. As if in response to the manic gnome, not one but four flickering sets of eyes appeared, each bright yellow, breaking the endless black. The oval slits slowly began to circle the blade wielding gnome—Remtall reckoned the creatures ten yards away on each side of him. The magical yellow balls danced about in perfect rhythm, curiously observing their find. Suddenly a fifth set of eyes began to glow, as if a torch had been lit, and while the original eight eyes rotated slowly around Remtall, the fifth pair did not move sideways, nor back, but only in a direct line toward him.

“Come on then. You’re the leader I suppose, poor vermin. Surely you do not know who it is you’re meddling with,” Remtall taunted the fifth pair of eyes as it grew larger. A strange-formed body began to emerge as they drew near. Slowly, Remtall saw the uniform black around the glowing yellow eyes take shape, and a body separated from the static background of murky pine trunks.

“Kem Empta Gnoma! Wort Chane! Kimp! Kimp!” came the shrill voice again, this time piercing at Remtall from behind.

“Kimp! Kimp! Kimp!” came another.

“Kimp!” came a third voice to Remtall’s left.

“
Kimp! Kimp! Kimp! Empta Gnoma! Kimp! Kimp! Kimp!
” the eyes chanted in unison, chorally sounding even shriller, and Remtall winced at the grating song.

“Enough, primitive-tongued rodents. Come out and test my blade, or remain a troop of hiding cowards!” Remtall goaded. The body housing the fifth pair of eyes jumped forward; Remtall was taken aback at what he saw: two enormous tendrils extended high up above each of the creature’s yellow eyes, each tendril hairless and smooth. At the end of each tendril was a small bulb, the size of the gnome’s fist, and on the bulbs were several small, spiked growths. The creature’s eyes were level with Remtall, and aside from its high arching tendrils, it was the same height as the short gnome. Its face was bulbous and triangular down to the chin, supported by a neck that appeared far too long and thin to support its oversized head. From the darkness, Remtall could see the blotchy skin pattern of the yellow-eyed beast: it appeared a grainy tan, coated in grey and red flecks. Under the scrawny neck was a small set of shoulders that capped two bony arms, long and fragile looking, each with circular mounds of serrated claws at their ends. The stomach bulged at the top but sloped away from the head near the legs, and it receded into the darkness, yet Remtall could still make out two legs on either side of the silky creature. As it crept closer still, he perceived a waddle in its gait, and he wondered if he should run. Looking around desperately, he realized the other four still circled him.